Global Smart Clothing in Healthcare Market

Smart Clothing in Healthcare Market Insights

Wearables have for quite some time been proclaimed as the eventual fate of savvy innovation. The healthcare IT industry which was ruled by smartwatches and smart devices has now become popular for smart textile or smart clothing technologies. Smart clothes/ garments/ textiles are mostly called high-tech clothing or e-clothing is the latest milestone of wearable medical devices. These clothing products are embedded with smart sensors that can track one's temperature, diabetes/ blood sugar levels, vital signs, and heartbeat monitoring. Their use is more than just wearing them and hence have exclusive hold in the market.

The major market drivers for this advanced technology are rising preference for continuous and smart wearables amongst home healthcare users, high prevalence of diabetes population across the globe and especially across the Asian countries, real-time data monitoring of fitness and health parameters, and increasing product launch in countries like US, Germany, China, India, and others. Furthermore, the market has also witnessed a rising trend of monitoring daily body activities using affordable sensors, point of care, and easily available medical devices. Lastly increasing demand or value for health data acquired through such monitoring smart products will propel the manufacturers to get engaged in producing and launching more wearables than ever.

Smart Clothing in Healthcare Market: By Component

Based on the components the market is explained in two categories, namely clothing wear, and smart apps. Clothing wear is holding the largest market share owing to increasing demand for wearables for continuous health monitoring especially across APAC and North America. However, the market for smart apps will be growing faster as compared to the market of wearables. This can be attributed to prolonged use and constant subscription of users which will yield revenue faster than the later one.

Smart Clothing in Healthcare Market: By Application

The specific market applications of smart clothing in the healthcare domain are vital sign monitoring, thermoregulation, diabetes care, and others. Owing to the rising demand for heated clothing products, the market for thermoregulation will stand first followed by the vital sign monitoring segment. Moreover, the majority of the company’s product category includes clothing wear for thermoregulation and temperature management.

Smart Clothing in Healthcare Market: By Type of Body Wear

As per the type of clothing, products are available in the market, the segmentation can be seen as footwear & smart socks, innerwear, the upper and lower body wears/ suits, and other wearables like headband, caps, soles, etc. However, owing to the high revenue sale and popularity of the upper bodysuits, the market for upper wear ought to be the dominant one amongst all other types of body wears. Upper wear includes smart shirts, smart vests, and smart jackets. The majority of the biometric data is acquired from the upper part of the body which includes, heart rate, respiration rate, and breathing rate, and hence the market for upper wear is largest in 2020.

Smart Clothing in Healthcare Market: By Region

Demand for health parameter tracking is the highest in the North American region. Also, this region is the land of most of the tech start-ups that are market players for smart clothing. To sum it up, countries like the US and Canada have government monetary support for further research and development for smart clothing. Hence, the market for NA would be leading as compared to other regions considered in the market. However, with the increasing prevalence of diabetes and other lifestyle disorder based population in Asia, the market for the Asia-Pacific region is ought to be growing the fastest. Furthermore, increasing awareness regarding health-tech smart devices and real-time monitoring trends amongst Asians will help the region grow at the highest CAGR.

Smart Clothing in Healthcare Market Share and Competitor Analysis

Vulpes Electronics, Nanowear, DUPONT, Applycon, Sensoria, Carre Technologies inc (Hexoskin), AIQ Smart Clothing, HealthWatch Ltd., Siren Care, Orpyx Medical Technologies, Toray Group, Owlet Care, Myzone, Athos, Ambiotex, and Emglare Heart among others are the major players of the market.

Please note: This is not an exhaustive list of companies profiled in the report.

In July 2020, researchers of Tufts University initiated a research project on a sweat detection sensor for sweat detection, by launching smart fabrics.

In the same year, Nanowear entered into a research collaboration with New York City-Metro Health Systems for developing smart clothes or fabrics for the detection of COVID-19 infection.

In December 2019, Chronolife launched Nexkin, which is a smart T-shirt with the certification of CE mark, that monitors around 5-6 physiological indicators.

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